


settling of the dust

by thosewhowant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bees, Case, First Time, Grieving, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I swear they end up together in the end, I'm starting to think I wouldn't know fluff if it bit me on the ass, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV: John Watson, POV: Sherlock Holmes, Pining, Post season three, Retirement, So much angst, Sussex, post-tab, so much pining, tw panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:58:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6558490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosewhowant/pseuds/thosewhowant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plastic bag of white powder is an event horizon. Every night he dances around it to the tune of the waltz he wrote for John, and some night Sherlock will tire of dancing and slam the giant Self Destruct button that beckons like an ember in the night.</p><p>But for tonight he sets the Persian slipper down on the mantel reverently and pours himself another coffee, middle of the night be damned. He stands at the window and imagines that through the smog he can see Venus, Cygnus, Andromeda. That maybe, just maybe, John is doing the same.</p><p>The idea that John may be in the Southern Hemisphere, looking at a different sky, hurts so much that he thinks it may kill him.</p><p>-----</p><p>After the inevitable confrontation with Moriarty, John leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	settling of the dust

John left.

The smoke has dissipated into London's smog, the rubble is no longer blocking off the main entrance to the London Eye and therefore causing much-maligned traffic jams, the blood has faded to rust-dark stains on jagged concrete, and Sherlock tallies that which remains. Mrs Hudson, safely ensconced in Baker Street. Lestrade, set up in a spare room of Molly's after the fire damage became too much to live with, promising to move out as quickly as possible (Sherlock already knows how this will end, they've been dancing around each other far too long. Lestrade doesn't even mind Toby's fur all over the couch, they were clearly meant to be.) Sally Donovan, promoted to DI after her excellent work. Irene Adler, somewhere unknown, an untrustworthy ally once more. 

Those were the happy ones.

Moriarty (formerly one Mary Morstan), unmistakably dead this time. His parents, somewhere in the Pacific on a cruise, line-dancing their grief. Mycroft, who had sacrificed so very much for Sherlock, resides under an oak tree in a quietly posh cemetery. A plaque bears his name at the Diogenes, honoring his devotion to civil service.

And then there was John.

John, who had been through so much. Who had seen his best friend commit suicide in front of him, whose wife had deceived him, who had pulled a trigger in an abandoned house near the Thames. 

John, who had waited until Sherlock was busy with statements for all levels of bureaucracy - MI6, Scotland Yard, his brother's people - and then quietly discharged himself from the hospital and left.

Sherlock had spent three hours repeating the same story over and over and over before raking his fingers through his hair for the ninth time and declaring himself finished for the day. He slammed the door behind him, furious with their idiocy, and had fixed two cups of Earl Grey - one with milk, the other with two sugars. When Sherlock had hesitantly entered the room he had been prepared for John to yell at him, scream at him for not knowing; for John to sit catatonically as he had done for the past two days. What he had not expected was for the room to be empty, and Sherlock had slumped into the uncomfortable plastic chair in which he had spent the past two days and did not allow himself to feel anything at all.

\-----

It is three weeks and two days later when Lestrade shows up at 221B.

Mrs Hudson answers the door, as always, and Sherlock hears them twittering in the hallway. She sounds glad that someone is here to visit Sherlock. He has not broken his self-imposed isolation, and why should he? The only two people who ever broke through it - one by force and the other by kindness - are gone, in different ways that seem equally insurmountable.

Sherlock has his back to the door, staring out the window with his bow resting lightly on the Strad's strings, when Lestrade walks in cheerily.

"Hey, mate," Lestrade greets him. "Feels like it's been an age, dunnit?"

"Three weeks and three days is hardly an age," Sherlock remarks without turning and scrapes the bow against the strings in a decidedly unmelodic manner as punctuation. 

"I missed you too," Lestrade says, deadpan. "I've not got a case on yet, I think London's criminal class has gone into hiding in the wake of everything." He sits down in the chair - John's chair - uninvited, and Sherlock's shoulders tense. 

Sherlock doesn't turn around, doesn't want to see anyone else in John's chair. He keeps his eyes on the building across the street as he speaks. "Congratulations to you and Molly."

Lestrade's grin is evident in his voice. "How on earth did you -"

"You smell of her perfume. It's very light, not the sort that one would pick up without coming into very close contact with the wearer."

"Brilliant as always, even if you are a berk," Lestrade says fondly. 

Sherlock shrugs, causing the blue dressing gown to slip insouciantly from one shoulder. "Meretricious," he replies, and winces.

Despite the time off and newly active love life, Lestrade is still perceptive enough to notice the slight movement. "Are you okay? I didn't think your injuries were bad enough that they haven't healed yet."

"I'm fine," Sherlock bites out, erasing any hope that he is, in fact, fine. He stands perfectly still as Lestrade scans the flat behind him, noting the dust, the crystal ashtray overflowing with cigarettes by the window, the shattered teacup in the kitchen.

"Anyway," Lestrade tries to sound casual, "Where's John?"

"Shops," Sherlock says, and even he can hear the lie in his voice.

He hears Lestrade stand up from the upholstered chair and now he can turn around, fix him with a glare that warns him not to speak.

To his surprise, Lestrade doesn't. He only looks at Sherlock and lets him read the genuine sorrow on his face.

"If I've got a case on, I'll call," he promises.

"Better be a good one. Locked room murder or a serial killer," Sherlock mutters, but he knows that he would take a six, even a four, if only to distract himself.

Lestrade nods and hesitates for a moment, on the verge of saying something before he decides against it and heads downstairs.

Sherlock stands in place and watches the late afternoon sun light up John's chair until it is the brightest thing in the room.

\-----

Sixteen cups of coffee, two roasts cooked by Mrs Hudson and served with motherly clucking, and seven days later, Sherlock realizes, truly realizes, that John is not coming back.

He should have realized it at the four week mark, when John's horrendous jumpers (Sherlock loves every one of them, even the horrific maroon jumper made from Icelandic sheep wool) lay unclaimed in John's bedroom. He didn't want to admit that he had secretly hoped that John, too, would realize that it had been a month and that he should come back home, back to Baker Street, but he had and so waited another day. And when that day drew to a close, sunset lighting up the red chair once more, Sherlock had still held out hope.

He wakes up the next day to the reality that four weeks and two days have passed and that from here on out, the invisible milestones - one day, one week, one month - will grow ever farther and farther apart. Six months. A year. Two years. 

Possibly, forever.

The realization, obvious though it may be, kicks his heart into high gear. Sherlock sits up abruptly and pulls his knees up to his chest to ride it out, and as the panic onsets he can feel the scars on his back pulling tight. He grips the sheets beneath him tightly.

He sits like that for an undetermined amount of time before his breathing slows.

Disgusting, this weakness. Sentiment. 

Sherlock doesn't know what to do. Mycroft is gone. John has left. Moriarty is dead, and the work seems dull and meaningless without an archenemy. He hates himself for this, because he shouldn't miss the woman who betrayed John and killed Mycroft and so many others. And he doesn't, not really, but he misses the sense of purpose, the thrill of the chase - (but no, what he really misses is John by his side and Mycroft looking over his shoulder-)

Sherlock grabs a new sheet of manuscript paper that appeared on his desk days ago and sets it on the music stand. The first pen he picks up is out of ink and he chucks it out the window, heedless of those beneath.

He plays then, and writes, and plays. Aching minor chords and hopeful high notes juxtaposed with a low melody are coaxed from the Stradivarius, written in three quarter time.

It flows from his violin like blood from a wound, and feels the same.

The last waltz he wrote was for John and Mary. This waltz is for him and John, a dance that will only ever exist in his mind.

He turns around hours later, when light is barely trickling through the window - is it evening or dawn? - and sees Mrs Hudson standing in the doorway. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and she excuses herself with a fluttering of hands.

\-----

Sherlock gets a call from Lestrade.

"There's been a death," Lestrade says without preamble. "Can I get you on the scene? The stepfather is pissed as hell and wants it figured out quickly - apparently he's in politics or something."

"Where?" is Sherlock's only answer.

He arrives at a posh residence in Belgravia only a few streets over from where Irene Adler had lived. A new constable is obviously in awe of him and stares at him curiously as he points Sherlock to the upstairs bedroom. Sherlock pulls up his coat collar as he walks in.

Molly is there with Lestrade. "Hello," she says with her usual tremulous smile.

"Molly, George," Sherlock says curtly.

Lestrade rolls his eyes. "It's Greg, you arse. I could go on about how we've known each other for over a decade but you've probably deleted that too, so let's focus on the body."

He crouches down next to the body. "Gillian Lowe, twenty two years old. Her sister found her like this an hour ago, already dead."

Sherlock studies the body, noting the advanced swelling.

Molly notices and adds "That's not natural, obviously. It reminds me of anaphylactic shock, actually. Any known allergies?"

"None," says a raspy voice from the doorway. They all three look up to see a teenage girl with red rimmed eyes. The sister, presumably. 

"None at all?" Molly asks. The girl nods before a man comes up behind her and grasps her shoulder, a shade too tightly. 

"Helen," the man says, and none of them miss the way she almost flinches at his grasp, "What are you doing here? I know that this is a difficult time, but you need to let the police do their job."

Helen worries her lip between her teeth before allowing herself to be guided downstairs, and the man departs with her without a backwards glance.

"The stepfather," Sherlock says. It isn't a question.

"Odd," Lestrade murmurs.

"We don't often see acute anaphylaxis onset often in the morgue," Molly volunteers. "I mean, it happens, and allergic reactions can onset very quickly, but it's not terribly common."

"The stepfather told us that she took epinephrine, though. If she didn't know that she had a severe allergy she wouldn't have the pen in the first place-" 

Lestrade breaks off as Molly looks closer at the needle mark and the empty epipen. "The needle for the epinephrine is very fine. Only a wider gauge needle would produce this sort of a mark."

"The stepfather lied about the epipen so a needle mark wouldn't seem suspicious," breathes Lestrade. "And the sister seemed afraid of him. The stepfather murdered Gillian for one reason or another - maybe he hated her, maybe he wanted sympathy or to blame her death on a rival - and said he wanted it solved quickly so we wouldn't have time to put the pieces together."

He looks at Sherlock, standing by the window. "How'd we do?"

Sherlock is certain that his expression doesn't change, that his posture doesn't sag at all, but his very stillness must give him away because Molly looks timid in a way that she hadn't since helping him fake his death. Greg, curse him, seems to understand too, and he feels the white light and fluorescent heat of an interrogation room is shining down on him as he answers. 

"Got it in one," Sherlock says. He blinks and tries not to look at the doctor and the detective unconsciously standing close, eyes lit up with the thrill of the game. Is this how he and John looked? 

He smiles at them, an honest smile that is nonetheless clouded with regret and grief, and he can tell that in approximately two seconds Molly is going to invite him to dinner and coddle him and ask about his well being and he knows, he knows he can't do that. So Sherlock smiles and says, simply, "Congratulations." On solving the case faster than he had, on being smart enough to tell each other how they felt.

He handcuffs the stepfather to the stair rail on his way out the door and flags down a cab, ignoring the yells from behind him.

\-----

John had never been able to find the cocaine hidden in 221B. He wasn't stupid, he would have known it existed even without Lestrade's drugs bust that first night, but he never had found it. The most he had ever succeeded in doing was destroying Sherlock's sock index.

He has been clean (with very tiny exceptions that were for a case, really) for years, and it's not that he plans to relapse, whatever one might think. It's just that sometimes, even years later, he can feel his veins aching and howling in response to the siren call of a seven percent solution. It screams like a banshee and promises icy clarity and a high not dissimilar to that of the world's most precise instrument working at 120% capacity and running so fucking perfectly that the precision almost inspires tears.

And as bad as the need gets, it is a necessary comfort to know that sewn into the lining of a Persian slipper there is cocaine enough for a phosphorescent high.

It shouldn't be comforting to hold his demons in the palm of his hand; count the weight of his sins milligram by milligram.

Sherlock hasn't shot up yet, even though he holds the slipper in front of him like a benediction each night.

(He remembers John that first day at Bart's: an army doctor with a bullet wound to the shoulder, a psychosomatic limp, and a smear of gun oil on his hand. John must have had a similar ritual, tasted his gun and felt the cold weight of steel on his tongue and decided "Not yet, I can make another day.")

If Sherlock had needed to go out and find a dealer to acquire his particular brand of chemical bliss, he would not have been able deny the sheer unadulterated want shrieking through his veins. He would have shot up, and he knows somewhere marrow-deep that he would not pull himself out of it this time. Self-destruction runs deeper than the drug addiction, and the only people able to stop the vicious cycle are gone.

The plastic bag of white powder is an event horizon. Each night he dances around it to the tune of the waltz he wrote for John, and some night Sherlock will tire of dancing and slam the giant Self Destruct button that beckons like an ember in the night.

But for tonight he sets the Persian slipper on the mantel reverently and pours himself another coffee, middle of the night be damned. He stands at the window and imagines that through the smog he can see Venus, Cygnus, Andromeda. That maybe, just maybe, John is doing the same.

The idea that John may be in the Southern Hemisphere, looking at a different sky, hurts so much that he thinks it might kill him.

\-----

John had come back the night before Mycroft's funeral. 

Sherlock was sitting blankly on his chair when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He tensed automatically, the weight of memory tugging at him, before identifying the intruder. Used a key, walks slowly, short steps, slightly uneven gait: John, his limp pronounced due to stress. 

He couldn't move when John appeared in the doorway, only stared at him like he had stared at his hallucinations of John in Hong Kong, in Moscow, in Serbia: with tremulous hope and no small amount of confusion and fear.

"John," Sherlock breathed out.

The small golden man in the doorway appeared to struggle with himself for a moment before releasing his breath harshly. "Why," John asked in a manner entirely unlike a question, "do you always say my name like that? Like it's- holy, or something."

Sherlock didn't bother to answer. If John knew enough to ask the question, he ought to know that his name was the closest to religion that Sherlock would ever come.

John did realize it, Sherlock could see it on his face. "You're unbelievable, aren't you?"

Sherlock regained control of his body and stood. "I'll make tea."

John followed him into the kitchen and shadowed his movements. If John were a cloud, Sherlock thought, he would be a thunderstorm, crackling with lightning and booming with thunder and positively dangerous to the touch. 

Handing John his tea, he allowed his thumb to brush the back of John's knuckles and sure enough John tensed, ready to fight or flee. It was almost worth it for the bolt of electricity that, for one tiny second, reminded him that he was alive.

Sherlock held his mug in his hands and allowed the warmth to seep through him. John would talk when he was ready, and the stony wall of impenetrable silence suggested that he wasn't.

Halfway through the mug of tea John seemed to come to some kind of decision, because he turned and threw the mug of tea at the wall. The ceramic shattered and Sherlock flinched.

"I loved you," John yelled. "I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life - and don't tell me you didn't know that, because you know everything, don't you - and you killed yourself in front of me. Let me think it was my fault for two bloody years - and then, just when I thought I was going to be okay, you ruined my life for a second time by waltzing back into it in a shoddy waiter costume like it was a bloody joke."

John clenched his fist furiously. "I would have gone with you, I would have died with you, I would have died for you. But no, the great Sherlock Holmes only keeps his sidekick around as an ego boost and leaves him behind whenever it bloody well suits him."

The quality of John's rage disconcerted Sherlock. John almost smiled with the force of his fury. "And after everything you put me through - that's when you let me know that you love me? After I spent a year and a half in a colorless world, after I found someone I wanted to spend my life with. That's when you let me know. And then I had to watch you plan my fucking wedding to a woman who you couldn't even deduce was an assassin. Tell me, honestly - did you know who she was? Was my marriage to a psychopath just an way for you to get ahead?"

"No. Of course not, no - John? How could you -" Sherlock couldn't make the words come out right, couldn't make them come out at all.

John laughed mirthlessly. "Just thought I'd check. It takes you a while to explain some things, like when you decided to play a game of hide and seek with Moriarty's web for two years without telling me."

Sherlock snapped, crowded John up against the kitchen counter. "Hide and seek? You think that's what I did for two years?"

He leaned over John and felt an incandescent rage build up in his chest. "I killed people, John. I gathered information, and I interrogated people, and I killed people. All alone, for two years. The stakes of this 'game', as you so eloquently termed it, were life and death. Failure meant torture and almost certainly execution. And you know what? I was captured. Three times, the last of which was so bad that Mycroft himself had to go undercover and drag me out of a Serbian interrogation room.

"I kept you alive and safe when I stepped off the roof of St Bart's. I planned your wedding to someone else. And I never made you choose between me and Mary. I would have taken any scrap you saw fit to toss me because I deserved whatever punishment you threw at me. But I won't take responsibility for what happened this week."

Sherlock took a deep breath, tried to calm himself. It didn't work. "I'm sorry for my role in placing you in the situation, but I did not make you pull the trigger on your wife."

Sherlock was pinned up against the wall, hands behind his back and chest to chest with a furious John in under five seconds. The violence of the hold didn't surprise him. Sherlock prepared himself for whatever hurt John wanted to inflict upon him.

What he didn't expect were lips crashing against his, hot and brutal and claiming, and John's free hand pulling the collar of Sherlock's tee shirt down so that John had easier access to his mouth. The kiss scorched through him like a wildfire and Sherlock groaned when John's mouth sucked a bruise into the pale skin of his neck. John's body pressed against him, warm and solid and so very real, and Sherlock had just worked up enough brainpower to verify that John Watson was, in fact, kissing him, hungrily and in a manner that made his blood simmer in his veins when John tore himself away and backed up.

John's deep blue eyes, such a miraculous shade that he has not yet been able to categorize (and oh, how he has tried) were hard and fierce even as he panted with kiss-swollen lips. He stepped closer again with his jaw clenched and Sherlock, for the life of him, couldn't stop himself from shrinking away.

John stopped. "Sherlock," he said, and his voice was gentle and somehow that cut more and so Sherlock shut his eyes because he couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't have Mycroft be dead, couldn't have John hate him and so he stood in the kitchen with his eyes shut, willing the world around him to go away in the manner of a child wishing themselves out of a burning building.

"Just leave, John," he said, and his voice was flat. "Please."

A gentle hand touched the side of his face; caressed the bow of his mouth, his cheekbone. Sherlock leaned into the touch.

"Sherlock," John said again, his voice soft. "Open your eyes."

And Sherlock did, because he could never deny John anything when he asked like that, and found himself looking into blue eyes oceans away from the hard ones he had seen only moments ago. John's face was soft now and faintly illuminated by the red glow of the fire and he looked like the sun, golden and radiant.

John tilted his head up and waited for Sherlock to bring their lips together. This kiss was entirely different: gentle, tender. Loving. Sherlock pressed a small kiss to the corner of John's mouth and lingered for a moment before John stole a little sip of Sherlock's lips, and it was so achingly tender that Sherlock felt his throat tighten. 

"Hey," John whispered into the curls behind Sherlock's ear. "Are you okay?"

Sherlock didn't trust himself to speak. He buried his face in the crook between John's neck and shoulder and tried to nod from there. 

"Of course you're not okay, that was a bad question. Okay then, next one." John pulled back, scraping a kiss against his jaw on the way, and looked at Sherlock. "Can I stay here tonight?"

His voice was hesitant and he hurried to add on. "I can sleep in my old room or on the couch-"

"I want you to fuck me."

John's breath hitched. They stared at each other for a moment, entwined together in the dim light, and Sherlock didn't bother to hide his desperate vulnerability. John looked at him for a moment, considering, before shaking his head. "No."

Sherlock's eyes closed of their own accord and John's hand ran along his jawline. "None of that, now. I don't want to fuck you. I want to make love to you."

Sherlock opened his eyes to see John looking at him earnestly. "Oh." 

"Bedroom?" John's voice carried a dark promise. 

"Oh god, yes."

John undressed him slowly, reverently, pressing kisses into Sherlock's skin as he unwrapped him. Sherlock felt as though he was floating, moored to the earth only by the points at which John's warmth touched him. John lavished attention on his neck while his hands ghosted over Sherlock's ribs. By the time John's fingers brushed over his nipples and pinched lightly he was so deliciously aware of his own body that his back arched and he cried out. Warm lips brushed the round scar on his chest and tenderly avoided the myriad of scrapes and bruises that littered his flesh, preferring instead to create new bruises with his mouth.

It had never been like this before, Sherlock thought as John wordlessly urged him onto his stomach. The room was illuminated only by the streetlight through the curtains and so John couldn't see the scars on Sherlock's back, but he ran his hands along Sherlock's skin like he was reading Braille. The raised scars revealed themselves easily, and John kissed the length of every one. 

Finally John reached into the drawer to get the lube. He slipped slick fingers into Sherlock's cleft and Sherlock pushed back against him.

"You can be rough, it's fine," Sherlock said, dizzy with the sensation of John's skin on his and feeling as though he would shatter at any moment. No one had ever taken this kind of time with him or touched him so gently, so reverently, and he wanted the pain; wanted it to ground him and remind him that this was just sex, that John didn't actually love him.

John didn't cease his gentle circles. "Nope," he said, and pushed a finger in slowly and Sherlock's breath suddenly vanished from his lungs.

John prepared him slowly, so slowly that he thought he would be nothing but a smoldering pile of ashes before John deemed him ready. It was worth it when John draped himself over Sherlock's back and kissed his neck and pushed in.

He'd never had sex because he'd wanted to. His previous experiences had been rough and quick, a street bargain, chemicals for chemicals. Sherlock had never been touched as though he was precious, never been worshipped by hands and a mouth and, oh god, a cock. The tenderness terrified him for a moment and he dropped his head onto the pillow, buried his face and clenched the sheets. John stopped moving and kissed his shoulder blades and ran a soothing hand down his arm to join Sherlock's fingers with his, and when Sherlock rocked his hips back John started to move again.

Time stretched out into honeyed tendrils as John rocked in and out at a devastatingly slow tempo. Heat flared through Sherlock's body and he was hardly aware of the noises he made when John angled just so. All he knew was that at one point an inexorable wave built up inside him and he tried to warn John that he was going to break, going to fall to pieces but John just held him and pressed in deeper and harder and Sherlock fell apart and so did John above him.

He dimly felt a soft flannel clean him up, maneuvered by gentle, competent hands. He came back to himself later and felt John's compact body wrapped around him and his face resting on John's shoulder. Sherlock wondered vaguely why his shoulder was wet before touching his own eyes, which wouldn't stop leaking. 

John's chest shuddered and Sherlock looked up only to see that John was crying as well, quiet sobs that couldn't quite be contained. He reached up and brushed a tear off of his cheek. John caught his hand as he lowered it, entwined their fingers and held on. 

"John," Sherlock said, and if it had been a prayer before it was a blood sacrifice to the gods now. He raised their combined hands and brushed his mouth against John's, letting his lips linger and his nose take in John's unique scent.

John repeated the movement, brushing his lips against Sherlock's hand, and gathered Sherlock closer. As Sherlock drifted into sleep, exhausted and warm and sated and truly content for the first time he can remember, he thought he heard John whisper "I loved you" into his dark curls.

Sherlock woke up to an empty bed, mussed sheets and a broken mug. He went to Mycroft's funeral alone, and no one noticed the purple bruise peeking out from under the collar of his black suit.

\-----

Sherlock can't remember the last time he left the flat for anything other than cigarettes. He doesn't eat, with the exceptions of the curries and biscuits that Mrs Hudson brings up. She fusses over him in a motherly manner that Sherlock tries to discourage. She doesn't stop, because she knows that Sherlock wants to push away anything else that can hurt him, and so continues to ruffle his curls and nag him about the atrophying kidneys in the fridge.

Lestrade brings files of cold cases, which he solves mechanically. He texts Greg ("It was the ex-wife, look at the tread pattern on the footprints. SH") and includes the bare minimum of details for the idiots at Scotland Yard to puzzle out. 

He composes sometimes but spends more hours standing in front of the window, Strad and bow in hand, watching for a compact man with a predilection for horrid jumpers to walk toward 221. 

Sherlock spends at least an hour a day cradling the Persian slipper in his hands and imagining the sweet bite of a needle entering his veins. The high would be crystalline, radiant, a white-cold rush of reason and clarity and he could do anything-

He catches himself staring longingly toward the slipper when his mind wanders. It should concern him. It doesn't.

\-----

Sherlock is walking back from the convenience store, cigarettes in hand, when he sees a familiar stocky figure in an appalling jumper on the doorstep of 221B and his breath catches in his throat unbidden. Then reality floods back: two inches shorter, tawny hair cut to the shoulders, female. 

The nose is the same, though, and that's all Sherlock needs to conclusively identify her.

"Harry Watson," he says and she turns around to face him, startled. 

"Sherlock Holmes," she replies and holds out her hand.

He ignores it. "How may I help you," Sherlock says, in a manner designed to make people piss off. 

Not for nothing is she John's sister, because she only replies "You could let me in, for starters," and cocks her head like John does when he thinks Sherlock is being overly stubborn. The similarity is enough to take Sherlock aback and he lets Harry brush past him against his better judgement.

Harry surveys the cluttered living room, piled with papers and reeking of cigarettes. "So," she says with raised eyebrows. "You've been doing well."

"What do you want?" Sherlock snaps.

"Thought you might like to know that my brother is a colossal dickhead."

Sherlock raises an aloof eyebrow. "He'd say the same about you."

"You know him well," she says wryly. "But really, it's one thing for the golden boy to fling that accusation at his alcoholic fuck-up of a sister, but for that same fuck-up of a sister to throw it right back at him and have it stick? That means he fucked up, and as delicious as that is for me to see as a sister, he's hurting you. So. Colossal dickhead it is."

The quiet snort that emerges from Sherlock's chest surprises him. "Supportive sister, I see."

"Always," she agrees cheerfully. "Particularly when it means I get to needle him."

"That's why you're here, then? Message received, thank you and have a nice day." Sherlock holds the door open in obvious invitation.

Harry ignores it and sits on the sofa. He grudgingly shuts the door and releases a long sigh, swooping across the room for his violin. 

"Ah ah, don't you screech at me. Johnny's told me all about that."

He turns on his heel, almost hissing. "I'll ask again: why are you here?"

"Listen. Johnny chronicled your life extensively on his blog and complained about your foibles even more on the rare occasions we spoke. It occurred to me that two of the most important people in your life left at the same time in a rather traumatic manner." She leans forward and catches his gaze. "I know I've relapsed for lesser reasons."

"And you would know about my struggles with addiction how?"

Harry shrugs and plucks at her awful jumper. Apparently poor sartorial taste is a family trait. "Johnny liked to regale me with success stories, people who kicked their addictions to the curb and never looked back. That's bullshit, as you know, but he admired you. He told me about it so that I would know that life goes on and can be spectacular." She looks around the flat that inexplicably feels deserted. 

Sherlock's lips press into a line. Harry said that John admired him. Past tense.

"Basically, I thought I would expand my role as Irritating Little Sister. Version 2.0 includes pissing off Johnny by telling him when he's being an idiot and extending the scope of the program to his old flatmate." Harry props her elbows on her knees. "So. You're about forty five seconds away from forcibly ejecting me from this flat, preferably via the window by the looks of it. I'd give you my number but I took the liberty of entering it in your phone while you were preparing to torture me with classical music." She tosses it over to Sherlock with a brazen grin.

Sherlock grinds his teeth. "It's password protected."

She gives him a slightly pitying look, and he recognizes it as the one he had given Irene Adler years ago when he had blithely revealed her heart. "As if it was that hard to guess. As I was about to say, call me anytime. I'm your best bet when it comes to someone else sympathizing with your - well, self-destruction is the normal term but self-annihilation seems more appropriate."

Sherlock watches as she walks to the door. "We've never even met before today, so why are you doing this?"

Her eyes are gentler now than they've been. "Because we should be family," Harry says, the corner of her mouth quirking into a rueful smile as she shuts the door.

\-----

Johnny, you need to talk to Sherlock. -Harry

Piss off. -JW

You're a colossal dickhead, you know? -Harry

But seriously. He's not doing great. -Harry

Look, I know that you're torn between hating him for "ruining your life" (he didn't, by the way, you cocked that up all on your own) and hating yourself because you realize now that he's actually human and you've hurt him. Rock and a hard place, I get it. I do. -Harry

But tell me honestly that you don't love that man. None of that "I'm not gay" bullshit, because everything about the two of you fairly screams that you've slept together. -Harry

You saw him? -JW

No shit. -Harry

Why? -JW

Jesus, I can feel the jealousy vibrating off of you via text. Impressive. -Harry

Because, Dr Watson, I am more familiar with the mechanics of addiction than you, as much as it pains you to acknowledge. -Harry

You went to see Sherlock to make sure he hasn't relapsed. -JW

Yep. -Harry

And he let you? -JW

He didn't throw me out the window. From what you've said, I'm counting it a success. -Harry  
How is he? -JW

Not doing great. Keep up Johnny, I told you that ages ago. -Harry

For fuck's sake, talk to him. -Harry

I haven't decided what to do yet. -JW

It's been six weeks. If you don't know by now, you're just going to stay in perpetual limbo. -Harry

I can't decide which of us I hate more. -JW

Congratulations on a terrifically unhealthy love life. Fortunately, your partner is similarly torn up. -Harry

Look, it sounds like you're in a cycle of loathing and self-loathing. You both are. It's bloody dysfunctional but you're in a situation that I don't even know that half of because most of it is bloody classified. -Harry

So you get back together and either you love each other enough that you start to forgive yourselves and each other, or you end up killing each other. Simple as that. -Harry

Not funny. -JW

I wasn't trying to be. The alternative is both of you dying recklessly, alone, and soon. -Harry

\-----

John left 221B at 4:21 in the morning. 

Sleep hadn't found him that night. Holding Sherlock close to him, placing gentle kisses in his dark curls and brushing moisture from his cheeks and marveling at the pliant body curled protectively around him had been an exercise in self-loathing the likes of which he'd never encountered, and as a former army surgeon he had experienced plenty. 

Jesus. He was in love with Sherlock, still. And he had told Sherlock so in a fit of rage, half a heartbeat away from hitting him, and (oh god) Sherlock hadn't known. He remembered the look of utter shock and hurt. John had always assumed that those expressions would look unnatural on Sherlock's perpetually aloof visage; now he wondered if perhaps the disdainful expression hadn't been the mask while Sherlock's heart lurked underneath, tender and unseen. No, Sherlock hadn't known that John loved him.

And then he had taken Sherlock to bed the night before his brother would be put in the ground and he still hadn't forgiven Sherlock enough to be what he needed and, fuck him, he just couldn't do it anymore.

John disentangled himself from Sherlock's long limbs, guilt searing through his veins, and gathered his clothes from the floor. He caught a glimpse of the clock as he left and knew, just knew, that he would forever remember it as the time he left Sherlock Holmes when he most needed him.

John took a cab back to Harry's flat. It was only the work of a minute to grab his suitcase and write a quick note (Thanks for the hospitality, I'll be in touch. -JW) before walking the few blacks to the train station. London was eerily still around him, quiet but for the droning roll of his suitcase, and John remembered all of the times he and Sherlock had been out at the same hour, staking out a business, running after a counterfeiter-

He caught the first train leaving London. 

John got off the train in Sussex. This was a place that was free of ghosts: new to him, unencumbered by Sherlock or Mary. He could stay here for a while and just be, sort out his feelings without constant reminders of either of the lives he used to have.

Or so he thought until he took to investigating the small cottage he was renting and discovered beehives out back by the small stone wall.

Even here he couldn't escape.

\-----

John developed a ritual. Every day he would walk the mile or so into town, grab a coffee at the local shop (he couldn't bear the taste of tea anymore, not when the ghost of Sherlock's mouth on his mixed with the bergamot) and chat a bit with the locals. He was friendly enough but the conversation was restricted largely to the weather and sports, and he dimly recognized that this distance had characterized the vast majority of his relationships before Sherlock had come into his life. 

He would then walk back to the cottage, pull out his notebook, and think.

He came to terms with his feelings about Mary first. Really, it shouldn't have been so hard in the first place. He had been so desperately fucking lonely after Sherlock's death, and she had taken advantage of that to get to Sherlock, to get to Mycroft. What John finally started to understand was that he didn't mourn her. He mourned the life he thought they had, thought they could have had: the house in the suburbs and the baby girl on the way and an easy, comfortable existence. But he had hated that life while he had lived it, in truth; ran off after the neighbor's junkie son and twitched away from his wife's touch. And that was before he learned that she had been an assassin, before she had shot Sherlock. Before he learned that she was the new Moriarty, leveraging Sherlock and therefore Mycroft by way of her grip on John.

When John had laid it out like that, he was no longer horrified that he had pulled the trigger that last day. He had only the vague guilt at the waste of a human life that he had felt after killing the cabbie, muddled with a healthy dose of resentment and nostalgia for a daughter that never was.

That left Sherlock.

Sherlock had always defied categorization. Even John, when he had knew him better than anyone else, had never been able to get the full measure of the man. Brilliant, infuriating, arrogant, a better person than he liked to admit - that didn't even scratch the surface.

John filled three pages of his notebook trying to describe Sherlock properly before giving up, tearing out the pages angrily and throwing them in the bin, crumpled.

He found himself writing less and reminiscing more, bursts of memory interrupted by the low pulse of anger deep in his belly. It burned like an ember and sent hot waves of guilt through him.

The days turned into weeks and John still didn't know what to do.

He had left Sherlock. The memory of his total vulnerability and the way his face had creased in confusion when John's touch was gentle instead of rough - God, Sherlock had shown him everything, and what if he had been like this the entire time John had known him? How many times had he hurt this beautiful, impossible man without realizing it?

The last part of his ritual involved a glass and a bottle of scotch, usually around the point that his own self-hatred threatened to burn him alive. 

John hadn't set pen to paper for days when Harry texted him. She had been telling him to talk to Sherlock for the past few weeks, going so far as to take the train down just to glare for a little over an hour before heading back to London, and he was two fingers into his daily ritual so he felt justified in telling Harry, for the millionth time, to just piss off already.

Of course Sherlock isn't doing well. And, Jesus, the drugs. He didn't bother asking if Sherlock was using, knew that he was clever enough hide his tells.

He poured himself more scotch before a rather obvious question came to him: has he ever looked at this all from Sherlock's perspective? Not just That Night, but all of it.

John carried the bottle with him and set it down in the table with a heavy clunk. This would likely require liquid courage. He grabbed a pen and started writing.

-Faked his own death (tried to save my life and Mrs Hudson's and Greg's)  
-Didn't tell me after (didn't trust me? Or didn't want to put me in danger)  
-Came back (I'm an utter arsehole for even putting this on the list of issues)  
-Waiter costume? (no bloody idea)  
-Interrupted my proposal (he had to have known, right? Didn't he?)  
-The bomb in the Tube (he told me to leave him and run though)  
-Lied about turning it off (did he want my forgiveness so badly?)  
-Planned my bloody wedding (God, he tried so hard to make me happy)  
-Told me he bloody loved me at my wedding (in a platonic way, after I was married, so I wouldn't have to reciprocate)  
-Left my wedding early  
-Got fucking high (for a case but was it really?)  
-Got shot by my bloody wife (which is his fault how? But seriously how did he not see it)  
-Didn't see that she was an assassin (and he sees everything did he really not see it or was he just not looking because he wanted me to be happy)  
-Set it up so that Mary indirectly told me that she was an assassin (and promptly went into cardiac arrest because he wanted me to know it firsthand)  
-Told me that it was my fault (I don't know but she was in the room and maybe he had to convince her that we weren't a threat)  
-Shot Magnusson for Mary (but was it really for her or for me)  
-On the tarmac told me that Sherlock is a girl's name (god I think he wanted to say that he loved me but couldn't)  
-Got high on the plane and nearly overdosed (while reading my blog that's the last thing he wanted to read before he died, oh god)  
-Put me in a position where I killed my own wife (but he didn't, he was kidnapped and I followed and I chose to pull the trigger and then I blamed him)

John stopped writing and reached fuzzily for the bottle. The amber liquid sloshed heavily as he poured with an unsteady hand and knocked half of it back in a single swallow, and he rested his elbows on the desk and looked down at the piece of paper with its ever-messier scrawl. 

Those things that hadn't made sense, that had been plaguing him for months on end. Sherlock had done all of it because he loved John. Really, truly loved him. Enough to die for him, to come back to life for him. And what had John done? Hit him, thrown him to the ground, left him, flaunted his fiancée, yelled at him. 

He remembers the sheer number of raised scars on Sherlock's back, the way that Sherlock flinched at loud noises when he hadn't before, the way that tenderness had seemed almost alien to him. He had been captured, he said. Tortured at least once, quite possible many times.

Quite likely there were times when Sherlock was grateful that John already thought he was dead, because he himself wasn't sure he would survive the day.

But he had made it back and, after being rejected by John, done everything he could to make it up to him. To his own detriment, to the point where he planned John's wedding to someone else and was nearly sent on a suicide mission after killing a man.

All of this for John.

"Oh, God," John said out loud in the empty cottage.

\-----

Sherlock is surprised that it took so long, but he is angry now. Perhaps it was the conversation with Harry. Sherlock knows his own faults intimately, knows that his myriad of life choices - smartarse, junkie, intelligence agent, bad brother, horrible flatmate, freak - don't lend themselves to a rosy opinion, and therefore it is hardly unexpected for any given situation to be at least partially his fault, and quite often completely so. 

But. Harry thinks that John is in the wrong. And while Sherlock had considered the possibility, he thought it was far more likely, statistically speaking, that Sherlock had wronged John and not the other way around. 

But no. John had left him, left him after telling him that he had loved him (and that alone was enough to push his actions into cruelty, really), left him after making Sherlock feel, for quite possibly the first time ever, loved. 

And so now Sherlock is angry. Furious and hurt and still a bit confused, he saws at his violin and steadfastly refuses to look down at the pavement, smokes cigarettes aggressively, and curls up into a hostile silk-covered lump on the sofa. Mrs Hudson, inexplicably, appears to be relieved by this behavior. Sorrow still appears on her face when she thinks Sherlock isn't looking, but she provides support in odd ways: bringing coffee in the mornings when she realizes that the tea remains undrunk, coddling him without being too obtrusive, calling him "dear." He accidentally lights a spleen on fire during an experiment and instead of chiding him (the smell of burning flesh and formaldehyde really is difficult to rid one's nose of) she only purses her lips exaggeratedly. Sherlock spies a gleam in her eye as she retreats to the less-pungent refuge of 221A. She thinks that he is doing better, that the anger is healthier than the nothingness.

She's not wrong. But the switch from apathy to fury doesn't change the existence of Sherlock's self destruction, only the manner in which it will occur. Sherlock craves cases, sprinting after murderers in the fog of predawn, and he wonders idly if that is how it will reveal itself - a fight against too many assailants and a knife in between the ribs, a dive in the Thames for evidence with no one to jump in after him. 

Mycroft is gone and Lestrade has been annoyingly silent after the Lowe case, so Sherlock is reduced to venting his fury in a domestic manner. If asked, Sherlock would have guessed that this would result in destruction: belongings incinerated, a knife in the back of a chair, explosive experiments, etc. 

All of which have occurred, but by and large Sherlock has expressed himself by furiously folding laundry, wrathfully dusting the top of Mrs Hudson's kitchen cabinets, and washing dishes as if every piece of ceramic has personally done him an injustice. 

Sherlock is in the middle of reorganizing his bookcase, hands gentle despite the sulky glare he directs at every volume, when John knocks on the doorframe outside 221B.

The treads in the staircase register only dimly as Sherlock stares daggers at John's copy of Gray's Anatomy. He's torn between saving it for practical reasons and using it to conduct an experiment on the flammability of shredded versus bound paper when he hears the hesitant tap tap and snaps "I'm busy, Mrs Hudson."

There's no reply and Sherlock frowns. Turning towards the door, he sees John standing just outside the living room. 

Sherlock inhales sharply before cursing himself for being obvious. He's grateful that he is dressed in a well-cut suit and fitted grey button down instead of pajamas and a dressing gown, because he will need every bit of dignity he can spare.

Reminded of dignity, he gracefully levers himself to his feet before carelessly setting the heavy book down. It lands on the bookshelf with a heavy thud.

"John." Sherlock's voice is flat. Compressed carbon turns into diamonds, one of the hardest materials on earth, and the pressure of the past seven weeks must have caused a similar transformation in his own voice because it is hard, crystalline.

John still stands on the other side of the doorway, uncertain of his welcome. "May I come in?"  
Sherlock shrugs, trying for insouciance. "If you like."

It's the best invitation he'll get and John seems to accept it as such because he nods jerkily and steps inside. Once through the threshold his will falters and he stands awkwardly, almost certainly remembering the last time he was in 221B.

Sherlock deliberately does not offer tea.

"Can we talk?" John asks.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. The best route through, he has decided, is sarcasm and mockery. "I don't know, can you?"

"That's a yes, then," John says. Determined in spite of his awkwardness and - Sherlock briefly looks up - guilt.

He only shrugs again.

"Can we both sit?" is John's next request, and Sherlock falls into his own chair gracefully and looks meaningfully at John's, cocking an eyebrow.

John sits. He waits for a moment, clearing his throat a few times before accepting that Sherlock is not going to take pity on him, not going to make it easier.

Just because he knows this, however, does not mean that John Watson can resist the temptation to resort to social conventions in the face of discomfort, and he asks "How are you?" before grimacing in distaste.

"Wonderful," drawls Sherlock. He sits and looks at John, perfectly aware that most people find his gaze disconcerting for any period of time, and wills John to leave before this train wreck of a meeting gets even worse.

John - damn him - realizes what Sherlock is doing immediately. "Ask me to leave and I will, I swear, but I need to talk to you."

"After seven weeks of silence?" Sherlock sneers. 

John doesn't falter. "Yes."

Sherlock flaps a hand lazily. "Go on, then." 

"I made a mistake," John says quietly, trying meet Sherlock's eyes.

"Seven weeks of silence rather suggested as much. Really, kind as it is of you to tell me, it is entirely unnecessary."

John shifts uncomfortably; draws in a deep breath before letting it out like a balloon loses air. He starts again. "I bought a cottage in Sussex this week."

Did John come here to hurt him? "My sincerest congratulations."

"It's beautiful. About a mile out of town, gorgeous view of the hills." John inhales, gathering his courage. "It has beehives."

"Why-" Sherlock grits his teeth, "are you telling me this-"

"Because I want to share it with you," John bursts out, too scared to try for subtlety or romance or anything else. "I don't want leave London, not yet, but we could spend weekends there, just the two of us and the bees. I want us to retire there someday, together. I want you, in every possible sense of the word. I want us to chase murderers and watch crap telly and keep bees. I want to kiss you and hold you and grow old together, and God, the worst thing I have ever done in my life was walk away when all of those things, everything I've ever wanted, was within my grasp. I love you. I loved you before, and after, and always."

John shuts his eyes for a moment. "And I'm sorry. I'm so, so unbelievably sorry, and I could apologize to you every day for the rest of our lives and it wouldn't be enough. And I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't forgive me, because honestly, I'm never going to forgive myself for everything I put you through. But. I had to let you know how I felt." His words seem to have cost him even the bit of willpower necessary to keep his head upright because John has slumped forward and can't look at Sherlock.

Sherlock can't breathe. Can't deduce, can't observe, can't think. He sits numbly in his chair and blinks. The foundation of his mind palace is shaking and the rooms shifting. Stones shudder as his mind rearranges itself into two clear paths. The one to his left is the majority of his mind palace: the building where the body of the woman in pink was found, the Roland-Kerr College for Further Education where John shot a man to save him, the layout of 221B, the Cross Keys Inn in Dartmoor. All of it is John.

The option to his right is a single blank room with a glowing red self destruct button centered on a podium. Sherlock knows that if he pushes that button the lights will turn off, his mind palace lost to him. Out of the corner of his eyes he can see the blank room rearrange itself into the dark shadows of a crack den, but he blinks and it is starkly white once more.

This moment is the crossroads, and while Sherlock can never completely eliminate the option on the right he knows that should he choose it the option on the left will not come back.

Sherlock has been quiet for too long because John finally looks up from his contemplation of the rug. His eyes widen and he quickly kneels down next to Sherlock. A warm hand snakes around his wrist. Taking his pulse, he realizes.

"Sherlock. Are you okay? Just breathe. Take a deep breath in, and release it." John's training appear to override his uncertainty. Sherlock inhales and the burning in his lungs subsides. Oh.

"Good. Another one, for me."

Sherlock obeys, and his heart rate calms. He hadn't realized that his transport was acting at odds with his mind. 

"I'm sorry," John says quietly. "I didn't mean for you to react this way. I just, I had to get it out. I love you."

John's hand is still curled around his wrist, beseeching but not possessive. There are many things Sherlock wants to say - leave, don't ever leave me, how could you do this, are you sure, I've loved you ever since I saw you smiling on the outside of a crime scene with a hot gun at the small of your back - but what he says is "Mycroft is dead."

John lowers his head. "I know."

"Of - of all the times to have done that - I had to say goodbye to you both on the same day," he says. It came out unsteadily, not accusatory, but John winces all the same.

"I don't know that I'll ever deserve your forgiveness for that, should you choose to grant it. I was angry and selfish and left you and hurt you terribly-"

"You were grieving too," Sherlock reminds him. "You'd lost everything you ever wanted."

"No. I lost everything I thought I wanted, and you don't get to make excuses for me."

"But I'm not. I'm angry with you, but I don't doubt that I deserved the vast majority of it." Sherlock falters. "I hurt you so deeply, so many times. And I'm- I'm broken now, a mosaic that might look pretty from a distance but is composed of ugly fractures glued haphazardly to form some semblance of normality-"

"No you're not," John says fiercely. "You're not broken, or rather you are but that doesn't mean that you're unlovable. When we first met I was nearly as broken as a person could be and I think that, just maybe, you loved me then. And I love you, even if you don't love yourself."

His throat is tight when he speaks. "We've both hurt each other in so many ways. If you really mean what you say," Sherlock hesitates, gathers up his courage, "What if we stopped keeping score? We've both broken the scale and there isn't any point in arguing who broke it by more. We've passed the threshold. So let's stop counting."

John looks up, still kneeling on the floor. "You're it for me, you know. And I would leave if you wanted me to, if you needed me to, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And if you're still up for that, the only question is, how do we want things to be between us?"

Sherlock can read between the lines easily - friends or lovers? "I- I think I want more, but..."  
He trails off, and John tries to fill in the blank. "It's been a long time since it was the two of us. Slowly, then?"

Nodding, Sherlock tries to speak but can't find the words, but John saves him once again. "Sherlock, if you're comfortable with it - may I hold you?"

"Yes," he whispers. There's an awkward moment in which neither of them know how to accomplish this objective, but John stands up slowly and tugs gently on Sherlock's wrist. John maneuvers them both over to the couch and seats Sherlock next to him, urges Sherlock to rest his head on John's shoulder.

Sherlock settles into the warmth of John's body, cataloging John's familiar scent and the scratchiness of John's jumper under his cheek. John, in turn, rests his arm over Sherlock's shoulder and entwined their fingers together. "Is this okay?"

Sherlock nods into John's neck. This is the most comfortable he's been in - well, seven weeks, and that sparks a niggling worry. "John?"

"Hmm?"

"This isn't going to be like last time?" Sherlock's voice rises at the end of the question, doubt seeding itself.

John grips his hand tighter, wraps his arm around Sherlock more securely. "No. I swear to you, I will never leave you again."

Sherlock nods once more as the last of his tension drains from his body.

They hold each other for hours, until it is time for bed and Sherlock stands up and wordlessly extends his hand towards John. John takes it and they walk to the bedroom together.

They hold each other all night, and this time John is still there in the morning.

\-----

Life doesn't go back to normal, quite yet. Everything is new and tentative and raw in a way that Sherlock dislikes, but slowly their life becomes more familiar, more like it used to be.

Upon bringing up coffee for breakfast the next morning Mrs Hudson finds John frying eggs in the kitchen. What follows is an impassioned scolding, consisting of many variations of "Don't you dare do that to my boy" and "You hurt him, John Watson" and "My husband might have been the one running a drug cartel but I learned a lot about wet work" and culminating in a smothering hug. John appears thoroughly confused as Mrs Hudson turns back downstairs, alternating between offers of biscuits and muttered threats, and Sherlock struggles to keep a straight face. He adores Mrs Hudson. 

They stay in 221B by unspoken agreement, and slowly their old patterns start to come back, and new ones are created. John makes the tea, as usual, and counts out the change in his pocket before going to sleep but now he counts it out on a table in Sherlock's room and rolls out their joint bed to make tea in the morning. They sleep in the same bed and they touch, slowly, thoroughly. John is horrified to learn that his one night with Sherlock had been the first time someone had touched him gently. Sherlock complains - "For God's sake, John, it's not like I had never had sex before!" - but John is insistent and so they take it slow. Sherlock doesn't mind as much as he pretends to.

After a week Lestrade calls Sherlock in on a case and John tags along. Upon arriving at crime scene Lestrade takes one look at John and goes "Anderson, fill Sherlock in because John and I are going to have a very long chat, right now." John emerges from their conversation fifteen minutes later shamefaced and contrite, and Lestrade watches him suspiciously for the rest of the case. Given that John and Lestrade had always gotten along well before, Sherlock is surprised by this development. When he asks why John almost seems to welcome the scrutiny, John smiles a bit (still ashamed, then) and just says that he's glad that Sherlock has people who care so much about him. 

\-----

One day Sherlock comes home from meeting with a potential client to find John sitting in his chair, Persian slipper in his hands.

Sherlock freezes. This isn't a coincidence: the universe is rarely so lazy. John had found the cocaine, then.

"Will you sit, please?" comes John's voice from the chair and Sherlock stalks over warily.

"Good hiding place. You used to hide cigarettes in here and so you thought I'd never check it for drugs - covering up an illicit substance with a less illicit one, very nice work, that. Unfortunately, I've learned from the best."

Sherlock is frozen. Is this how it is going to end after everything, over a bag of emergency cocaine that he's had for ages?

"You're not using," John says. A statement, not a question. "You wouldn't be able to hide the signs that well. So the question is, why do you still have this?"

Because John is looking at him, so earnest, Sherlock tries to explain. That he doesn't want it, doesn't plan to use it, but sometimes he craves it so much and can't stand the thought of not having it, and that if he didn't have it in the flat he would have to go out and get it and then he would use it, wouldn't be able to resist. He's vaguely aware that he's babbling when John takes his hand, and he shuts up abruptly.

"Sherlock. I'm not angry."

Sherlock looks at John and John looks evenly back at him, letting Sherlock read him. His shoulders relax after a moment. "You're not?"

"No. I might have been, but I had a very long conversation with my sister recently about addiction. It's one thing to know about it from a medical perspective, another to have lived it, a fact of which she had reminded me." John exhales, gathers his thoughts. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you to throw this out right now. But it sounds like that could be even more harmful. And I trust you. I do."

Sherlock's brows furrow. "So..?"

"Just. If you're having trouble, I want you to be able to come to me. It doesn't matter if it's the middle of the night. You can always talk to me and I promise I will listen and try to understand." John seems to have said everything he wanted to because he relaxes a bit. "Okay?"

"Okay," Sherlock whispers, and John grabs him into a hug and doesn't let go.

Later that night, when John has gone to bed, Sherlock picks up the slipper. He can't help but wonder if John has replaced the cocaine with something - powdered sugar, baking soda, something that looks like cocaine.

He lifts the sole out of the shoe to find a note on top of a plastic bag of white powder, written in a messy scrawl on a small piece of paper.

Sherlock - I love you.

That's all it reads, and Sherlock replaces the sole of the shoe. He sits on the couch quietly for a few moments, marveling at the trust John has placed in him.

Sherlock crawls into bed next to John despite his earlier statement that he would go to bed until dawn at least, and John sleepily turns over and gathers him in his arms. Sherlock buries his face in the crook of John's neck and feels content, and a bit awed. He doesn't need to test the chemical composition of the powder to know that it is cocaine.

Someday he will flush it down the toilet, and John will stand next to him and hold his hand while the drugs meet their ignominious end. And Sherlock will occasionally feel the ache in his veins, but he will ask John to hold him and read his cases from the blog, and it will pass.

\-----

Two months after John's return, Anthea shows up at 221B.

She appears at the kitchen table one morning, having circumvented Mrs Hudson and the locked front door. Sherlock raises an eyebrow at her when he and John stumble into the living room, sleep rumpled and yawning, at a quarter to nine.

"Congratulations," she says, and means it. The paperwork went through yesterday - a quick but lovely ceremony attended by Lestrade, Molly, and Mrs Hudson - and the silver rings on their fingers glitter in the golden morning light.

"Thank you," Sherlock pronounces coolly. John grips his hand, running his fingers along the rings as though he still can't believe Sherlock is wearing it, and smiles at her. "Tea?" he offers.

"No thanks, I've got to be off. I was asked to give you this, though," Anthea says before exiting the apartment as quietly as she's entered.

Sherlock picks up the envelope. The watermark of the Diogenes appears on the flap and he inhales sharply.

He uses the letter opener almost reverently, completely unlike his normal manner, and draws the letter out carefully.

Dear Sherlock,  
If you are reading this, I cannot congratulate you in person on your good fortune in finding happiness with Dr Watson. It is one of my greatest regrets that I will not see this moment come to pass.  
I write this just days after your aborted mission in Eastern Europe. Finally I believe I know what shall come to pass, and if I am correct, my chances of survival are minimal. If you read this, know that I was honored to ensure that you have the chance to live.  
I have learned many things over the past days, but the one that stands out is the bond between yourself and Dr Watson. I knew that you loved him, despite my warnings to not get involved. I didn't realize that he loved you until that day on the tarmac. As we know all too well, nothing is ever certain in this world, but I think that this outcome - that of yourself and the doctor being together - is very likely, should all go as planned. Over eighty percent probability, at least.  
I cannot imagine it was easy. You have both hurt, and been hurt. I hope that you shared the burden of your grief between you but it is more likely that you have split off and gone to lick your wounds alone. Yet you have still forgiven each other and yourselves, and for that I am glad.  
I wish I could have seen your wedding day.  
Dr Watson. I once asked you to look after my brother. I will hold you to that promise but I have no fear that you will uphold it. I am so very happy for yourself and my brother.  
Take care, brother dear. Know this: I am so proud of you. I always have been, and always will be.  
Mycroft Holmes

John looks at Sherlock to see tears streaming down his face. Sherlock has mourned Mycroft and missed him in the way that one misses an interfering and overbearing sibling, but John has not seen him cry.

He does now, and John wraps his arms around Sherlock, letting the tears trickle through the thin fabric of his tee shirt.

After a while Sherlock looks up. Tears are still leaking from the corners of his eyes, but he smiles at John, a tiny smile that makes John's heart skip a beat. "Are you okay, love?" John asks softly.

Sherlock holds the letter in one hand and John's fingers in the other. "I will be," he replies, and leans forward and kisses John.

\-----

They spend more time in Sussex as they grow old together. Streaks of white invade Sherlock's curls and John's hair has long since turned completely grey but they are more content in old age than either of them had ever imagined. Sherlock keeps bees and John sells the honey at the farmer's market on weekends, with Sherlock standing next to him in the booth and deducing strangers. They laugh easily together.

They are in bed together one night, reading with their feet a twined beneath the covers, when John sets his book down. He remembers the emptiness of the cottage when he first rented it, the way the bed felt too big and too cold, and now Sherlock sleeps next to him and has done so nearly every night for two decades.

"It was always you, you know," he mumbles sleepily. Sherlock looks over and pulls the book out of his hand, sets it on the bedside table and turns out the light. He turns to John in the darkness. 

"It was only ever you."

They hold each other as they do every night and fall asleep together, rings glinting in the dim starlight.

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to urgetostealanashtray for beta-ing!
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed reading this. I adore comments and kudos *hint hint* but seriously, thank you for reading!
> 
> Edit: I included a version of a case which I believed to be from canon but am no longer certain is, so I changed the names. My apologies.


End file.
